UTHSC News: Why Inflammation Matters This Holiday Season

As millions of Americans prepare for holidays, a cardiologist and professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center says the conversation about heart health needs to shift from cholesterol to include a less visible but more dangerous threat: inflammation.

Jimmy Kerrigan, MD, FSCAI, FACC, is an assistant professor of medicine at the College of Medicine - Nashville and interventional cardiologist at Ascension Saint Thomas Heart West. He explains how normal blood vessels don't accumulate cholesterol on their own.

"Something has to irritate the inside of the blood vessel, just like if you scratch yourself, you get a scab and then a scar," he says. "The same thing happens inside the heart. Something irritates the inside of the blood vessel, which is inflammation, and then the body puts cholesterol there, trying to heal it."

Read more on the UT Health Science Center News website.